As Bright as Heaven(48)

I am so grateful Willa was spared, but why does it come for the young and innocent at all? Why does it not wait until the body is old and gray and full of years? As a dull ache in my bones and heat under my skin starts to spread, I want to call out to the room, “What is it you want?”

Because I still do not know.

I can feel the fever creeping over me as just outside Willa’s door, the orphan child makes a happy, cooing sound. Maggie or Evelyn is taking him downstairs for a bottle or breakfast or maybe just to hold him and sing nursery songs to him.

“I hear a baby,” Willa whispers now. “Is it Henry? Am I in heaven?”

I smile down on her. “No, sweetheart. You are not in heaven. You are home. And we have a guest with us. A little baby. He’s not Henry, but he’s very sweet. He’s staying with us right now.”

Interest gleams in her eyes. “I want to see him.”

“When you’re all better.”

“What’s his name?”

I shake my head, the simplest of moves, but arcs of pain spiral across my head and shoulders. “I don’t know. We might have to give him one while he’s here.”

Willa thinks on this for a moment. The room begins to sway.

“I like Alex. Can we call him Alex?” she says.

I want to grab Willa’s blanket and wrap it about me. A chill in the room has turned to an icy blast. “Alex is a nice name,” I mumble as I try to stand.

“Mama?”

“I need to see about your pancakes, love. You just stay put and I’ll—”

Then I hear the shattering of porcelain.

I’ve fallen across the nightstand where a teacup had been sitting. As the room tilts, I remember it had been one of Fred’s mother’s teacups and I am sad that I’ve broken it.

The flu has released my daughter, but now it has sunk its teeth into me. I feel its jaws tightening, and my body’s inability to deflect it. As the world goes sideways, my companion seems to lean toward me as if to cushion my fall.

Just before my head hits the floor, I whisper the question I had seconds earlier wanted to shout. “What do you want?”

And as the room darkens I hear the answer.

I will show you.





CHAPTER 31



Evelyn


I am woken by the sound of china breaking and the thump of something heavy hitting the floor in Willa’s room. Tendrils of daylight are spilling onto my coverlet from the gaps in the curtains. The street below my bedroom window is quiet.

What comes to mind first is the sickening image of Willa lying unmoving in her bed and Mama rousing from sleep to find that our little girl has died in the night. The bedside table has overturned as Mama throws herself upon Willa’s lifeless body and the contents atop it have flown off, some of them breaking. I have no sooner pictured this horrible scene than I hear Willa cry out Mama’s name, rather than the other way around.

I spring from my bed and throw open my bedroom door, nearly crashing into Maggie, who is flying up the stairs with a wide-eyed baby in her arms.

“Stay there,” I command, and Maggie takes a step back as I yank open Willa’s bedroom door.

Mama is crumpled on the floor by Willa’s bed. Pieces of a broken teacup lie around her head. Her face is pale and a tiny trickle of blood is seeping out of a thin line on her forehead where a porcelain shard has cut her. Willa is half sitting up in her bed, her pale face creased with worry. But even in a swift glance, I can see my sister is better. Her eyes are bright and clear and her skin a faint peach color.

“She just fell over,” Willa whispers, her voice full of fear.

“Mama?” I kneel to touch her shoulder, shaking it just a little.

She moans softly and raises a hand toward me, not for me to help her get up but in protest. She is trying to shoo me away.

“Mama!” I say again, and I put my hand to her forehead. It is hot with fever. I see no sign of her mask anywhere about her. She had been caring for Willa without wearing it.

“She was getting up to go to make me pancakes and she just fell over,” Willa whimpers.

“Mama?” This comes from Maggie, hovering at the doorway with the baby in her arms.

Mama opens her eyes and looks past me to Maggie. “Go,” Mama murmurs.

“Run and get Uncle Fred!” I say to Maggie.

Maggie turns away without a word and I hear her footfalls fast on the stairs.

“Mama, can you sit up?” My heart is thumping in my chest, pounding away like it is caged and wishes to be free. Why hadn’t she worn her mask? How could she have been so careless? As I lean over Mama and try to wrap my arms around her, I realize I’m not wearing mine, either.

“Go, go!” she says, fighting me off with weak limbs.

“Why can’t she get up?” Willa whines.

“She’s just resting a minute, Willa. Hush now and go back to sleep.”

“I don’t want to go back to sleep. Make her get up!”

“Please. Evelyn. Just go,” Mama whispers.

“Uncle Fred is coming, and we’ll get you into your bed, Mama. Just lie still.” I stroke her forehead and she turns her head away from me.

Far below us I hear Maggie pounding on Uncle Fred’s bedroom door. Her voice carries up the stairs.

“Mama has fallen!”